This blog consists of PhotoFeature Stories on artists of all genres, human interest stories, guest blog posts, book reviews, and book excerpts.
CHRIS RICE COOPER is a newspaper writer, feature stories writer, poet, fiction writer, photographer, and painter.
She has a Bachelor's in Criminal Justice and is close to completing her Master's in Creative Writing.
She, her husband Wayne, sons Nicholas and Caleb, cats Nation and Alaska reside in the St. Louis area.

This was the integrity of man and I decided that I was going
to go "to war" to protect them. This is the war I choose to fight.”

--Larry Jaffe

Human
Rights Poet Larry Jaffe, 67, had his first experience with poetry by reading
Chaucer, which he described as so terrible that he stayed away from poetry
until he was in college, dating his girlfriend at the time, Joyce.

“Joyce at the time was a great literary influence.I don’t think she realized then or knows how
much she changed my life.Up to that
point poetry was beyond my comprehension, I hated it.But I heard the muse and she was calling my
name.For some reason the brevity of
words and expanse of concept just hit the right note for me.I liked the entire concept and started
thinking in 17 syllable bursts.I loved
writing haiku. For someone as undisciplined as I was, haiku was revelation.To this day I feel and hear poetry with my
fingers. It’s the rhythm I guess!”

Larry dropped out of college and, in
1970, worked for the underground press and antiestablishment rock magazine Zygote,
published by Len Sutton, and located in a subletting office owned by friend and
mentor Pete Hunter.

It
was at Zygote that he learned the tricks of the trade of all aspects
of writing:ads, writing, circulation,
and layout.

“We were writing with our
hearts. There was a feeling of euphoria mixed with invincibility. Then we were
drugged. Somehow, that feeling of the Woodstock Generation pervaded for a
while, but truly we were drugged back into yesteryear just to relive our
dreams.We lived on the largesse of the
record companies, lunches and then PR conferences for dinner. And I still wrote
poetry.”

In
fact, the highlight of his job was not attending the press conferences,
interviewing musicians or writing about music at his office, but writing poetry,
which he did while on the subway.

“I remember riding the subway after attending
a press conference.At the press
conference they would give us a couple of albums in big manila envelopes.By the time I would get back to the Zygote offices, poetry was scrawled all
over the envelope.”

He
moved to the west coast to San Diego and L.A. where he worked for a variety of
alternative magazines, getting married in the process and having children.He still wrote poetry but knew that it was
not a career path he could pursue until his children were grown.

“Taking care of my kids was the
most important thing and writing poetry wasn’t.”

In
the 1990s his kids were adults and on their own, and he took his poetry writing
to the next level by joining poetry groups, attending and giving poetry
readings, and sending his poems out for publication.

“Basho taught me to write with
simplicity. Leonard Cohen taught me to write with my heart. Langston Hughes
taught me to stand up for what I care about.Life as a poet is not so easy I’m afraid. I mean you don’t jump into it
to be a millionaire I suppose but I still have aspirations.”

Soon
after his switch from journalism to poetry, Larry noticed most of the monuments
he saw were not dedicated to peace, but to war.This led him on his first step toward human rights activism, to dedicate
his poetry career to promote peace, and to create Poets4Peace (no longer in existence).

“There are times when
you have to fight for what is right.I
do not believe you can just turn your cheek when something needs to be
done.So underneath the concept of war
and peace is this thing called human rights and dignity and when you violate
that, you are violating the Holy Grail so to speak. If human rights were
totally in, we would not be discussing war and peace.This is the bottom-line to life on this
planet.”

One of Larry’s greatest lifetime
experiences occurred in the year 2000, when he worked with Rattapallax
Publisher Ram Devineni (http://www.rattapallax.com) in
the coordination of international readings for the UNESCO (United Nations
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) Dialogue among Civilizations
through Poetry Project.

“We put together some 200
poetry readings in over 150 cities worldwide. I don’t think I slept for days as
I was coordinating the readings in Europe, Asia and North America. But what a
rush as the reading coordinators started checking in with me and letting me
know how their readings went. One communication in particular just made my day
and it was from Belgrade. One of the things we “preached” in the readings was
how uplifting and healing poetry can be. My new friend Igor, wrote to me saying
“You are right. This stuff really heals!”

In
September of 2001 he was the Poet in Residence at the Autry Museum of Western
Heritage now known as the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, California.

“Each month we aligned our readings with what
was going on in the museum, i.e. special exhibits.I was at the Autry during 9/11 and we had a
special reading dedicated to the first responders. Several Los Angeles firemen
gallantly read Auden’s poem September 1, 1939 which had become the anthem for
these most solemn of days.”

In
May of 2006, he was invited to the Czech Republic to do month long readings
throughout the area.While there, he
visited Theresienstadt (Terezin) Concentration Camp, where 97,000 Czech Jews,
including 15,000 children, were murdered.Only 132 children came out alive from that camp.

“I had seen quite a bit in my
lifetime, being that was a bit too much. I can still feel it in my fingers and
in my soul.It hit me hard.”

This experience led him to write the first
poems of his poetry collection One Child Sold:Human Trafficking and Rights.

He
wrote“The Children of Terezin”with
the famous quote by T.W. Adorno vibrating in his mind:“There can be no poetry after Auschwitz.”

The Children of Terezin

When I
visited Camp Terezin

the
children called to me

they
left ethereal homes

dropped
blankets

and
held out their tiny hands

for me
to lift them up

and
hold them close.

I
hugged every one of them

as they
told me

of
Terezin and how

their
fairy-tales kept them

alive
until story time was over.

I
hugged every one of them

as they
told me how

they
painted pictures

with
their fingers

dipped
in their mothers’ blood.

I
hugged every one of them

as they
sang songs

and
told me nursery rhymes

I
hugged every one of them

as they
told me about

the
playground of graves

how
they hopscotch

over
tombstones

and
ring around a rosey

was
truth

ashes ashes

all fall down

only
when they fell down

they
never got up.

I
hugged everyone one of them

even
the lost soul

who
crossed himself

like a
gentile

when he
cried.

I
hugged every one of them

because
the children of Terezin

no
longer wait for their mothers

to call
them home

Today
they have been set free

Excerpt
from One
Child Sold Human Trafficking and Rights

Page
43-44

“Terezin, despite its horror,
was very liberating for me. I could see and feel the inhumanity and oppression.
I could hear the children singing. I will never forget this and even as I
answer your question, the emotion surges through me. I wanted to free the
memories, unburden the ghosts and thus those poems had to be there.”

“She is a great
motivator and she fully introduced me to how, by teaching children and everyone
these (30) human rights, mankind would be freer.”

Later
that same year, he met his other mentor Dottie Laster founder of Laster Global
Consulting.Laster is one of the very
few professionals trained by the Department of Justice to train law enforcement
and others on the issues of Human Trafficking.

“I had no emphasis on sex trafficking until I
met Dottie and decided to support her.She has
inspired me too fight for human rights and to fight trafficking.”

Human Rights Begin

Where,
after all, do Universal Rights begin?In
small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on
any maps of the world.Yet they are the
world of the individual person; farm or officer where he works.Such are the places where every mean, woman,
and child seeks justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without
discrimination.Unless these rights have
meaning here; they have little meaning anywhere.

Mrs.
Eleanor Roosevelt.

Human rights begin

with your heart

miraculously
transforming

hate to love.

They begin

with your mind

inexplicably converting

fear to courage.

Human rights begin

with your fingers

astonishingly turning

violence into caresses.

They begin

with your family

evolving

ignorance into
intelligence

They begin

in your neighborhood

ultimately challenging

prejudice with
tolerance.

Human rights begin

wherever you are.

Excerpt from One
Child Sold:Human Trafficking and Rights

Page 17

In 2007, Jaffe was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at
the 2007 Saint Hill International Art Festival for his contributions in
fighting human sex trafficking and preserving human rights for all.

Former Executive Producer Sheila Gaiman
presented the award:“Each year an artist is chosen who uses
their art to help their town, country, or the world.Larry is the first artist selected to be
working for the safety of the entire planet and we very much want to encourage
this and are very proud of his work.”

Three years later, on
February 22, 2010, One Child Sold: Human Trafficking and Rights was published by
Salmon Press.

Since then Larry’s poetry on human rights has been published
by numerous magazines, including Quill & Parchment, which
featured Larry Jaffe as their featured poet for the February 2015 issue.Surprisingly, Jaffe did not write poems on
sex trafficking and its victims, but on love.

“How can I write about human
rights without writing about love? Loving humanity is of utmost importance,
despite the foibles, the evils, etc. Man is basically good. You have to see
past all that stuff and see the soul, the spirit, the being. Then all you can
have is love.”

Jaffe
and his wife Shelley have a blended family: son Devon and daughter-in-law
Heather; two daughters, Amber and Willow; two stepdaughters Amanda and Megan; and
three grandsons Rocky, Giovanni, and Nicco.

They
split their time between his home state of New York and Clearwater, Florida
where the couple share their own studio at the Clearwater Center For The Arts.